Analects 14.10: 憲問 (Xian Wen)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 14 tests ethical judgment in public life. Salary, courage, accomplished speech, and a reputation for virtue each prove incomplete measures of a person. The arguments about Guan Zhong ask how benefits to many people should weigh against a demand for personal fidelity. Accounts of officeholders, messengers, and failed appeals make responsibility concrete: competent service can sustain a flawed ruler, and a duty to speak can survive refusal. Short sayings turn from judging others toward learning, ability, and the relation between words and deeds. The later encounters press the choice between persistence and withdrawal when others offer no recognition. The dialogue with Zilu gives self-cultivation an expanding aim, ending in peace for all the people; the closing scenes test conduct through bodily bearing and the desire to seem grown before the work is done.
Analects 14.10
或問子產。子曰、惠人也。問子西。曰、彼哉彼哉。問管仲。曰、人也、奪伯氏駢邑三百、飯疏食、沒齒、無怨言。
Someone asked about Zichan. The Master said, “He was a generous man.” They asked about Zixi. He said, “That man! That man!” They asked about Guan Zhong. He said, “He took Pian, with its three hundred households, from the head of the Bo family. Left eating coarse grain, the man uttered no word of resentment for the rest of his life.”
Commentary
translation An unexplained judgment and a concrete result The repeated response about Zixi expresses a reaction without explaining it. The account of Guan Zhong then offers something observable: the dispossessed head of the Bo family never voices resentment. Legge takes 三百 as three hundred families and makes the transfer for Guan Zhong’s benefit. The English uses “households” for the unstated unit and makes Guan Zhong the agent of 奪, taking away. The grounds for the confiscation remain unstated.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium